Chapter 12: The Divisions of Labor in Society

Durkheim is definitely a wordy person. Throughout most of the chapter on the division of labor in society he repeatedly proposes a problem or question, and answers it with another question. It wasn’t until near the end of the chapter that most of the pieces began to fall into place. By fall into place I mean, make me halfway understand about half of what he said.


The Problem
Durkheim begins the chapter by attempting to explain the origin and general concept of the division of labor. He points out the fact that the concept of division of labor is so widespread in today’s society because of how easily it is to view in the marketplace and economy in general. The actual problem he comes up with however is using the principles of the division of labor to understand how it affects society.
The Function of the Division of Labor
In this section of the chapter, Durkheim explains how division of labor in society cannot actually be viewed directly. Instead, one must look at things that potentially affect society and delineate how much of an affect each of these systems has. This concept is difficult to grasp when he begins to mention that a causal relationship cannot really even be found.
In a sense one could say that social solidarity is what causes people to become closer, or people becoming closer makes social solidarity exist. Durkheim also uses the idea of public versus private law, in which case he says that all law is private because individuals are involved and at the same time all law is public because it is a social function. These are the points that get confusing when he begins to claim that sociological research can be done, but provides no real explanation of how, because some aspects of society cannot be seen or measured.
Durkheim says that customs are often the foundation for law, and both customs and laws can be physically seen and measured but internal group types of measures vary by the type of society (for example a family group differs from a political group). Almost anything that is in an internal consciousness would be extremely hard to measure accurately. That being said, basically social solidarity cannot be fully measured, but can be measured to some extent by the societal effects.
Near the end of this section he proposes a way to attempt to measure social solidarity. Durkheim feels that by measuring different aspects of law, and understanding which aspects of society each law affects, it could be possibly to measure social solidarity. What any of that actually means in normal words, I could not tell you but it sounds like at least he knew what he was talking about.
Mechanical Solidarity
This section is where Durkheim explains the concept of collect conscious. Which is basically the ideas and belief of a society as a whole, or at least that’s the best I can explain it. He states that it is independent of individual or personal experiences and is more of a fluid and passive idea system. Durkheim mentions how even though individuals die, the ideas and concepts a society has lives on and even transgresses through further generations.
This is where he begins again with law. It appears he views law as a way of keeping societies values and beliefs intact. Criminal acts as Durkheim sees them are nothing more than any act that goes against the moral fabric of the majority society. Having repercussions for an act that the society does not agree with is one way to ensure that just because someone breaks a law, it does not ruin the society.
The next part of the chapter explains what Durkheim means by mechanical solidarity. He explains that there are two distinct consciousnesses for each person. Basically there is an individual consciousness which comprises our personality as an individual, and the other consciousness deals with societal factors. This is where the mechanical part comes into play. The two consciousnesses must move in the same direction basically or the society will have problems. Meaning that is someone is trying to be an individual and do their own thing, they are thinking more of their individual consciousness and not of the society, and vice versa. If the consciousnesses move too far apart it can cause problems for the society as a whole. At least that is the best way I can attempt to explain this very hard to interpret piece of work.
Organic Solidarity
This whole section completely blew my mind to be honest. After a few pages of saying society is mechanical and almost finally grasping that concept, he throws in the idea of organic solidarity. The best I can understand this whole section is that he breaks down and explains the idea that individuals do indeed make decisions. Such as the example he gives of the judge looking over divorce papers, however the individual (in this case the judge) making the decision is not doing it for the personal gain of any party involved, but actually just upholding the law which is the basic fabric of social solidarity.
Closing
The most I could take out of this chapter is that it is confusing. But some parts could be understood if looked at hard enough. In plain English, social solidarity is a big mixing pot of ideas. Society cannot work without individuals, and individuals don’t work well without some form of solidarity to keep everyone from being insane. Although I think all of these ideas would be really hard to test, and he was perhaps ahead of his time in thinking, it is still pretty much over my head.